I've been a bit bitten by the Gin bug this week, foregoing my regular routine of poker, poker, and more poker to play Gin a little each night. The first card room offering Gin Rummy online that I've joined is Red Hot Rummy.
First of all, they are quite the open room. By that I mean they cater to a lot of different people. Offering the no download games lets anyone play from anywhere, opens the room to the Mac and alterntive OS crew, and let's people with older computers or dial-up bypass the bigger download and installation of a program onto their computers. They offer banking in US dollars, GB punds, Euros, and some other currency that is A$. Those are some pretty open arms.
The software itself is in an early version. There are a lot of little details that could use a clean-up. For instance, the picture of the table is a standard holdem table, which is odd. There are other characters shown at the table, but only two of us are playing. And i'm not sure if it's like pokerroom.com, where you can be a guy with a female screen character. There's some of that kind of "we'll worry about it later" in the details.
There are some functional heads-ups that I need to tell you about.
Red Hot Rummy Playing Tips
1. After signing up and heading into the room, you'll find that there are not a lot of tables open and waiting for players. They don't set up tables with a dealer and wait for players like a poker room does. There is no "official dealer" in gin! So, you'll need to find an opponent that's waiting for you to sit down, or
open a table yourself. You can choose "free" as the stakes for the game, and then play for fun.
2. I wasn't able to hide the Lobby window while waiting for a player to show up and play me at my table. If I did that, when someone did show up, it would try to pop up the game table, and it got blocked by my popUp blocker, I think. Either way, the window did not just come to the front of my screen. It got lost somewhere. So, no multi-tasking for me when I'm waiting for a game here.
3. Once you've moved out of the lobby and into the game table, you need to click the "Start Game" button on the right to begin the game.
4. The game will begin, and that button will say "resign". That means it is the knock button. I wish it would say "KNOCK" on it, but, it doesn't.
They Have Bots Playing Gin
Yes, that's right. They have bots. And when I wanted to play against the "Beginner Bot", he told me he was busy playing already. Uppity little snot.
But seriously, the traffic is kindof low, like local corner bar low. So, with the bots, which are all conveniently named skillLevelBot (AmateurBot, BeginnerBot, etc.), you can find a game. And, if you can find a bot you can beat consistently, you can drub up some cash from him.
I did wander over to where the BeginnerBot was playing, and I think I took him 4-3 in a 7 game series. So, he must be aptly named, as I am unquestionably a beginner.
The Banking
The banking can not be done from the Lobby of the room, you need to go back to the website itself to do it. I ventured back, and deposited a little, so I could test out the "bots" and try a human opponent or two.
There is a sign up bonus, but there's little information on the terms and conditions concerning the bonus. The only part I caught was that it was a "sticky bonus", meaning you cannot withdraw it. I bought in for $50, and never did see an additional $50 (making $100 total) in my account. But, perhaps it takes some time for the system to process it. I have to keep in mind that some of this stuff may be being done manually, and office hours are closed this time of night.
Overall
This being my first Gin dealing card room, I have no peers of theirs to compare it to. It certainly reminds me of the very first poker rooms that came online. They provide the opportunity to play the game, with some basic features installed. But, there's little in the line of bells and whistles. And perhaps that's fine. Instead of spending time on fancy graphics, they can pay attention and find other things that can improve the player experience, and add those features over time.
Red Hot Rummy's Grade
For now, it certainly is entertaining. I'll have to say I'm grading Red Hot Rummy on a curve here, and I'm going to give it a B.
This page was last updated on October 18th, 2006.
